Join the Conversation

Remains identified as missing Worcester woman

Brian Shane
6:52 p.m. EDT March 11, 2014

Authorities have confirmed that the skeletal remains found in a marshy ditch Sunday are those of 77-year-old Helen David, who went missing on Memorial Day last year. The story is on A11.
(Photo:
Ryan Putney Image
)

OCEAN CITY – Authorities have confirmed that the skeletal remains found in a marshy ditch Sunday are those of 77-year-old Helen David, who went missing on Memorial Day last year.

The Worcester County Sheriff’s Office kept David’s dental records handy in the event that her body was found, and sent them along with her remains to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore, according to sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Ed Schreier. The medical examiner used the dental records to make a positive identification that the remains are hers.

“Where her body was recovered was within a half a mile north of her house,” Schreier said. “We pretty much all assumed it would be her.”

Schreier said a fisherman setting minnow traps on the edge of Chincoteague Bay found what appeared to be a human skull in the marsh around 5:42 p.m. Sunday. He returned home to notify authorities by calling 911. The call went to Maryland State Police. A trooper arrived at the scene, and confirmed that there were human remains.

Knowing that they had an open missing persons case in the area, the sheriff’s office and detectives with the Worcester County Bureau of Investigation were notified, Schreier said. Police arrived to collect the human remains. They also collected a wristwatch, a pair of pants, and socks.

The autopsy investigation is ongoing to determine cause and manner of death, he said.

Schreier said the investigation into her May 27, 2013, disappearance showed that David wandered from her home, located in the South Point area off Route 611. Police from the start have treated it as a missing persons case with no inclination that foul play had occurred.

David lived on Carefree Lane with her adult son, Ryan Putney. Police said Putney was being notified late Tuesday with confirmation of his mother’s death, and would not be immediately available for comment.

In a June 2013 interview, Putney said his mother did suffer from dementia, and he hoped for her safe return.

Police learned that David also had walked off on the night before she disappeared, and was found by a next-door neighbor, who brought her home, disoriented. Her son later noticed that her legs were marked and lacerated, with some phragmites reeds about them, as if she had been wandering through the reeds around the house.

The following day, when she went missing, detectives saw evidence that David had again been walking through those reeds, according to Schreier. They also found the clothing she had been carrying in her hand as she walked, he added.